Five year plan
October 12th, 2005A couple of excellent rants over at Chicken Yoghurt, plus a generally jaded cynicism about anything the present government tries to do, have got me thinking: where are we heading?
So forgive me, as I indulge in some speculation over what’s going to happen over the next few years. The health and education systems will continually implode as the continual reform dictated to from on high distracts from any long-term improvement. The lack of coherent transport or housing policies will make living in and moving around Britain ever more expensive and inconvenient. The clampdown on civil liberties turns out to be quite ineffective at combatting terrorism. The long-term rise in oil prices and the US economic slowdown post-Katrina will hit the economy, and the ability to invest in public services with it. The toll of a ‘flu epidemic will not only cost the nation fiscally, but sap public morale. Not all of these are explicitly New Labour’s fault, but it doesn’t matter; very little has improved under New Labour’s tinkering, and in the electorate’s eyes, plenty has got worse. By 2009 or 2010, they will be miserable and ready for a change.
Meanwhile, Tony Blair has insisted on as Prime Minister right up until the end of his term, a move which not only stagnates his government but will give Gordon Brown no time to effect any leadership of his own prior to the election. Meanwhile, the Tories have elected Cameron as leader (narrowly), and his appeal to the floating fed up voter is enough that Labour could lose the election. By the time Blair actually does step down, Brown has taken a good hard look at the mess he’s going to have to inherit as PM (if he gets elected) and goes fuck that, I’m off, and joins the IMF or the UN instead to fight global poverty. The Blairites are secretly thrilled, especially when Milburn is elected as Blair’s successor as Labour leader, but are not thrilled when the electorate opt for Cameron, on the basis that he and Milburn sound exactly the same, but they want a change, so they go for the other guy. The only thing that saves Labour from total defeat is bias within electoral boundaries - we end up with a hung Parliament, with the Conservatives having the most seats. And then… well, my crystal ball goes murky at that point. But a Labour-Conservative coalition wouldn’t be a totally crazy solution to that problem…
October 12th, 2005 at 13:09:40
Too many dicey looking “what if” scenarios there for it to be plausible. I can imagine individually that bird flu will hit, that Brown won’t run for the leadership, that Milburn will get it instead, and that Cameron will last until then, but I can’t imagine all of that happening. As for a Lab/Con coalition, surely you jest (especially when they’ll have the disasterous experience of Germany to go on by that point).
October 12th, 2005 at 15:17:13
I think that Blair is waiting until the economy has pretty much tanked. THEN he’ll hand over to Brown, the man who has been the architect of the economic policy of the Government, and will go off and do something or other while Brown proceeds to blow the election so badly that he and John Major will be neck and neck for the worst election defeat in the last 20 years.
If Brown’s assessment is the same, he might head off to do something else BUT the IMF and World Bank jobs are pretty much full for the next few years. I doubt he’ll be able to do that. No chance of UN Secretary General or anything like that, nor EU Commission President. He’ll either leave politics (to spend more time with his family) or he’ll fight the election, lose, and retire to the House of Lords.
October 13th, 2005 at 01:42:51
I was kinda joking with that last sentence, yes, but it was the only logical conclusion to my gloomy prediction…